No description available.

Background: The studies analyzed have shown among other things that ageism appears to be an overlooked category in intersectionality studies, elderly is offered care in worse conditions than non-elderly and stereotypes restrict elderlys social space to act. The gray tsunami is approaching but studies show that large gaps separate different agegroups.Aims: The study discuss how scientists reason about ageism towards elderly in a social science discussion.Method: A literature review was conducted in which fifteen articles were analyzed. The database used, is the librariescatalog Summon, at Malmö University. The articles was compiled in themes to give dilated clarity in ageisms complexity towards elderly. The results are being discussed on the basis of terror management theory, gerotranscendence and social identitity theory.Results: Elderlys relation to society's expectations about aging can affect a self/body-dualism, a split. Scientists are often looking for one explanation to include all elders which gives the effect of homogenizing the group. Terror management (TMT) may explain young people's anxiety based on notions of elderly and aging. Social identity theory (SIT) could be one explanation of elderlys ageism towards their own age group, which has shown to be built on societies conceptions about aging and elderly.Conclusion: It is shown an eminent need to examine ageism more. The articles reason that many elderly undergoes a self/body dualism split, where aging can not be accepted because of society's perceptions of it. Elderly homogenized through stereotypes to which properties are attributed. By perceptions of elderly as different and acting in a way non-elderly can´t understand, because the lack of experience. Therefor, the theory of gerotranscendense can be discussed as one explanation for the distance and or that some of the non-elderly have difficulty identifying with some of the elderly.

The current paper was an attempt to study the defense mechanisms of terror management theory (TMT) via implicit cognition/indirect measures. In Study 1, an American and Foreign Single-Category Implicit Association Test (SC-IAT) and an American-Foreign Implicit Association Test (IAT) were used to assess implicit attitudes toward patriotism in an attempt to predict the worldview defense of patriotism in the TMT paradigm. It was hypothesized that these indirect measures would be predictive of the occurrence and strength of the worldview defense among participants primed with thoughts of mortality and not control participants. The cultural worldview defense commonly found in TMT did not arise, which precluded testing the efficacy of indirect measures as predictors. Explanations as to why the worldview defense did not arise and modifications to the design of the study are proffered. In Study 2, the automaticity of the self-esteem bolstering construct postulated by TMT was examined via an indirect measure of self-esteem (i.e., the self-esteem SC-IAT) and a measure of state self-esteem (i.e., the modified Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale). It was hypothesized that these measures of self-esteem would capture automatic self-esteem bolstering among participants primed with thoughts of mortality and not control participants. Both measures of self-esteem failed to capture the automaticity of the appearance of self-esteem bolstering following a mortality salience manipulation. Explanations for the lack of detection of self-esteem bolstering and suggestions for future research into the self-esteem bolstering construct within the TMT paradigm are discussed. Finally, factors central to the successful incorporation of indirect measures into the TMT paradigm are addressed. / Psychology

In two essays I investigate two antecedents of self-concept change in consumers: Threats to the self and the activated self-construal and its effect on goal conflict resolution. In the first essay, I explore identity strictly as consumers define themselves in terms of the possessions with which they associate. I argue that ironically the very effort to maintain self-consistency through living up to the value of materialism after facing a mortality salience threat can actually undermine consistency on the level of the extended self of highly materialistic consumers. Specifically, when faced with a mortality salience threat, the consistency of highly materialistic consumers self-concept is disrupted in which they not only detach from formerly intrinsic possessions, but also make formerly extrinsic possessions a more central part of the extended self-concept. I further argue that consumers can be protected from a disruption to self-concept consistency through the process of self-affirmation. In the second essay, I explore how the activated self-construal impacts whether consumers maximize pleasure or engage in self-presentational behavior after they have been invited to choose a gift for themselves. I demonstrate that consumers with an independent (interdependent) self-construal make more indulgent (modest) gift choices for themselves, and that this effect is driven by the activation of a goal to maximize pleasure (behave normatively appropriate). I also identify a boundary condition: When consumers are able to satisfy their activated goal before selecting a gift, the effects cease to exist. / Marketing

The aim of the present research was to investigate the issue of loss anxiety within the framework of disability and terror management theory. A questionnaire package was administered to 217 participants twice to examine the effects of mortality salience and disability salience. Besides mortality salience, paralysis salience was found to be effective. Highly conservative participants were becoming more conservative in the paralysis salience and mortality salience conditions. Content analysis was also conducted relating the participants&rsquo / accounts. It was concluded that death and disability were both inducing sadness for the participants. However, this sadness experience could have two different formats. The relation between experimental manipulations and global sadness accounts was not significant. However, the relationship between experimental manipulations and individual sadness accounts was significant. Participants in the mortality salience condition were experiencing less individual sadness than expected. In contrast, participants in the paralysis salience condition were experiencing more individual sadness than expected. It is concluded that death may not be the one and only fundamental fear as terror management theory suggests. Disability might be as fearful as death. A theoretical model is proposed for the alternative experimental manipulation in terror management theory studies. According to this conceptualization, an experimental manipulation could be successful if it satisfies the following three conditions: moderately fearful, highly imaginable/easily available and highly self-relevant. Any kind of loss which satisfies these conditions might result in cultural worldview defense. The threatening nature of disability might provide one more reason relating the importance of a disability-friendly environment.

No description available.

Terror management theory predicts that when people are reminded of their own mortality (mortality salience), they cling more strongly to cultural worldviews which provide them with a sense of security (Greenberg et al., 1986). For some people, this reaction to mortality salience also involves derogation of, and discrimination against, “other” people and cultures. An increasing tendency towards sensationalism in the news media has resulted in even more frequent reminders of vulnerability and death (e.g., terrorism, violent crime, health and safety concerns). In two experiments involving 868 introductory psychology students, the present research examined the extent to which their (a) support for authoritarian social policies relevant to Canada and (b) authoritarian attitudes in general are influenced by mortality salience. Specifically, right-wing authoritarianism, attachment security, and political orientation were measured in participants in both experiments. Participants were then prompted to think about either their own mortality or about another aversive experience having nothing to do with mortality. Next, participants were asked their opinions regarding authoritarian social policies (Experiment 1) and beliefs indicative of right-wing authoritarianism (Experiment 2). Multiple regression, analysis of variance, and t-tests revealed that individuals with (a) high pre-existing right-wing authoritarian attitudes and (b) conservative political beliefs increased their support for authoritarian social policies following mortality salience (Experiment 1). In contrast, individuals with (a) high attachment security and (b) moderate political beliefs decreased their support for right-wing authoritarian beliefs following mortality salience (Experiment 2), although the former relationship only approached statistical significance. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for the news media, for social policies and political opinions, and for social justice.

En psychologie sociale de la santé, l’analyse des dimensions psychologiques et sociales en jeu dans la construction des risques sanitaires constitue un enjeu à la fois théorique et pragmatique. En articulant le cadre théorique des représentations sociales (Apostolidis, 2006) et celui de la Terror Management Theory (TMT, Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 1991), la recherche proposée vise à étudier les liens entre l’induction d’un état d’anxiété et la mobilisation de raisonnements symboliques face au risque du sida. Quatre expériences ont été réalisées (N = 520, 221 hommes et 299 femmes, mâge = 21,1). Elles consistaient à rendre saillante l'idée de mortalité (versus un thème neutre) chez les sujets, puis à leur faire lire un scénario de relation sexuelle socialement normé (avec ou sans délai), et enfin, à leur demander d'évaluer la valence sentimentale de la relation décrite et le risque du sida lui étant associé. Les résultats montrent que le risque perçu varie en fonction de la valence sentimentale attribuée, qui elle-même varie en fonction du facteur délai. Ce fonctionnement sociocognitif est par ailleurs modulé par le sexe des participants, et par l'induction expérimentale : d'une manière générale, le délai est davantage valorisé par les femmes et par les sujets de la condition « mortalité », sauf en cas de convictions religieuses ou spirituelles. Les principaux résultats corroborent ainsi ceux de la littérature consacrée à la TMT. Nous les discuterons dans la perspective théorique des représentations sociales et nous poserons leur implication par rapport à la prévention du risque du sida. / In social psychology of health, the analysis of psychological and social dimensions involved in health risks construction represents a major both theoretical and pragmatic issue. The current research proposes to articulate the social representations approach (Apostolidis, 2006) and the Terror Management Theory (Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 1991) in order to study the links between an induced state anxiety and the mobilization of symbolic reasoning concerning HIV risk perception. In our four experiments (N = 520, 221 men and 299 women, age mean = 21.1), after death thoughts (versus a neutral theme) were made salient, participants were asked to read a socially normed sexual relationship script (with or without “delay”), and then were asked to evaluate the sentimental valence of the relationship described and the HIV risks associated with it. Results showed that perceived risks depend on the sentimental valence attributed, which itself depends on the “delay” factor. This sociocognitive functioning is also modulated by gender, and by experimental inductions : in general, waiting before having sexual intercourse is more valued by women and by mortality salience condition participants, except when they have religious or spiritual beliefs. Our main results thus support those derived from TMT. These findings are discussed in a social representations perspective, and their practical implications are examined in relation to HIV risk preventive actions.

This dissertation contributes to post-war public opinion research by examining the perceptions of migrants – the gastarbeiter, the refugee, the family reunited after war – and the local population in comparative perspective. Existing surveys of post-war populations are typically conducted in a single country affected by war. However, particularly following forced expulsion and campaigns of ethnic cleansing substantial portions of national communities affected by conflict no longer live within the boundaries of the state. Current research may therefore overlook important populations as well as contextual factors that shape post-war attitudes. I help to address this problem by examining three widely held assumptions in the literature: that migrants hold more conflictive attitudes than the local population after war; that assimilation in settlement countries leads migrants to hold more peaceful attitudes; and that traumatic experiences lead migrants to hold more conflictive attitudes. These claims are largely based on theoretical accounts, case studies that suffer from selection bias and quantitative results that have proven unstable. By contrast, I examine new micro-level data: two large-scale surveys conducted simultaneously in post-war Bosnia and Sweden as a settlement country. Sweden’s choice to grant permanent residency in toto to refugees from the Bosnian War in 1993 resulted in the vast majority remaining settled in Sweden. As a result, the population of ex-Yugoslavs in Sweden is arguably more representative than in other comparable settlement country contexts. To explain differences among ex-Yugoslavs in Sweden and between these migrants and the local population in Bosnia, I connect social-psychological processes that help meet individuals’ basic psychological needs. These include: belief formation in the context of war; acculturation strategies in settlement countries; the development of nostalgic memories; and coping with traumatic experiences. The findings shed light on largely misunderstood processes. Under certain conditions, migration may provide an exit from detrimental wartime and post-war settings that produce and sustain conflictive societal beliefs after war. At the same time, the migration context may provide a richer set of socioeconomic and psychological resources for coping, offsetting the need to rely on conflictive beliefs as a way of dealing with the conflict crisis.

In this research four models derived from Terror Management Theory (TMT) were tested by using structural equation modeling.. These models were developed for testing different theoretical alternatives in relation to psychological mechanisms explaining the subjective well-being as an outcome of fear of death. The first two models were based on the original Terror Management Theory. The first supposed that death anxiety as a catalyst motivates individuals in two defenses: developing culturally committed personalities by validation of cultural worldview and thus enhancing self-esteem. The second indicated that every individual had two options in the face of death: enhancing their self-esteem or committing to cultural worldview, in turn, improves the well-being of the individual. The last two models were identified by taking attachment as an alternative variable. In the third model, attachment styles of the individuals were presented as a third defense mechanism in addition to self-esteem and cultural worldview in TMT. They were assumed as mediator variables in the model between fear of death and subjective well-being. The last model treated attachment as a mediator between fear of death and distal defenses of self-esteem and cultural worldview. The results indicated that only the last model was entirely supported.. The lack of support for the first two models might be an indicator of the invalidity of the model in cultures that are not individualistic. For the last two models, the results suggested that attachment was crucial in understanding the relationship between fear of death and subjective well-being from a TMT perspective.